Conducted by the Dolan Contractor Group, experts in contractor payroll and accountancy, the study gathered responses from employees of 140 companies across the UK. Respondents were asked about the causes of what was deemed ‘excessive workplace stress’, how they combat stress to maintain good mental health and what their employers do to support them through stress.

The study found clear differences between SMEs and large companies when employees attributed sources of stress. Just under half of employees in SMEs (47%) stated that low pay, the inability to build savings and no chance of progression were stress points.

In contrast, the majority of employees from large companies stated that long working hours (40%) caused them the most stress, followed by overwork and management pressure (36%).

Both SMEs and larger companies need to be aware of these stress factors for their employees. The risk being that talent is lost to another company, or worse still, the employees health is put at risk through stress burnout.

When respondents were asked how they’d tackle stress, 30% of those at large companies stated that they would speak to their manager. The amount who would seek help from their manager reduced to 12% of workers at SMEs. It’s possible that small businesses need to work harder to provide anonymity or an environment that workers feel comfortable to confide in senior staff members. Of course, seeking help at work is one thing, but stress doesn’t leave once a person leaves the workplace, so it’s possible that they may also need to find solutions to combat stress at home too. Some might go for a walk, some might take a moment with some CBD plus THC gummies, some might write, journal, or make art, it’s all about each individual finding out what works best for them.

When asked how they would deal with stress, 6% of permanent employee respondents stated that they would not seek help if they were suffering from excessive stress, opting to ‘hope it gets better’. Worryingly, this figure rose to 17% of contractors and freelancers surveyed without an immediate HR support system.

The study also identified differences in how stress is experienced between genders, how stress is managed by each employee, and also reveals crucial differences between the support available to permanent employees and that offered to employees hired on a contractor or freelance basis.

Further findings from the study:

• Overall, the greatest cause of this stress in the UK workplace was found to be long working hours, with 41% of respondents to a study stating that they have been affected. Next most common is deadline or client pressure with 32%, followed by low pay and inability to build financial savings with 29%.

• Female contractor workers are less likely to suffer from excessive stress due to long working hours when compared to female permanent workers. With it being predominantly women who take time off work as the main carers for children within a family, flexible working hours are made possible by freelancing and contracting.

• Contractors and freelancers were found to rely more heavily on their friends and families for support, with 26% stating this was their method to combat excessive stress. Furthermore, 30% of contractor and freelancer workers have taken leave from work to combat excessive stress.

Richard Holmes, Director of Wellbeing at Westfield Health, states: “Burnout is a state of emotional, physical and mental exhaustion caused by excessive and prolonged stress. Pressure at work is usually the main culprit and when budgets are tight and teams are small, people often find themselves with multiple roles and heavy workloads, piling on the stress.

“Policies like flexible or remote working can help employees balance work and home life, and things like turning off email servers outside of working hours helps ring fence valuable recovery time. Mental health first aid training can also help managers spot the signs or triggers and put preventions in place.

“Contractors or freelancers who don’t have the support of HR might need to adopt their own strategies such as setting working hours, turning off email alerts out of these hours and separating work and living space if working from home.”

Likewise, Lauren Monks, Group Operations Director at Dolan Contractor Group, added: “The Stress in the workplace study deepens our understanding of our contractors, freelancers and the self employed. It outlines the key areas that cause stress and so gives us and employers insight to help reduce stress in the workplace.  

Stress is prevalent in all areas of work and across all industries regardless of the way you work- as a traditional employee or via your own limited company or umbrella employment, though contractors and freelancers are rarely mentioned in the conversation for stress in the workplace and mental wellbeing.

With the potential IR35 reforms looming, this adds a degree of uncertainty which we understand is unsettling and stressful for our clients. With 27% of contractors and freelancers stating that tax, red tape, and government changes contribute to excessive stress at work, we make sure that we offer IR35 contract reviews so our clients have the advice they need, plus we can offer them both umbrella employment as well as limited company accountancy. This takes the added stress of finding a new umbrella employer should the IR35 reforms affect them.” 

Hernaldo Turrillo

Hernaldo Turrillo is a writer and author specialised in innovation, AI, DLT, SMEs, trading, investing and new trends in technology and business. He has been working for ztudium group since 2017. He is the editor of openbusinesscouncil.org, tradersdna.com, hedgethink.com, and writes regularly for intelligenthq.com, socialmediacouncil.eu. Hernaldo was born in Spain and finally settled in London, United Kingdom, after a few years of personal growth. Hernaldo finished his Journalism bachelor degree in the University of Seville, Spain, and began working as reporter in the newspaper, Europa Sur, writing about Politics and Society. He also worked as community manager and marketing advisor in Los Barrios, Spain. Innovation, technology, politics and economy are his main interests, with special focus on new trends and ethical projects. He enjoys finding himself getting lost in words, explaining what he understands from the world and helping others. Besides a journalist, he is also a thinker and proactive in digital transformation strategies. Knowledge and ideas have no limits.

The post Workplace Stress: Over 4 In Every 5 SME Employees Have Been Affected By ‘Excessive’ Workload appeared first on OpenBusinessCouncil Directory.

The report by flexible workplace specialist Abintra draws together data from its work with more than 100 corporations worldwide with government and property industry figures to put hard numbers on the issue for the first time.

In London alone, the cost of office space being under-utilised is more than £4 billion annually, the report concludes, with large firms in other regions collectively squandering billions more (see table).

Big employers with large office spaces are likely to benefit the most by addressing the issue and switching to flexible working strategies such as desk sharing. They can use workplace monitoring systems and specialist consultants to typically find an extra 30 per cent or more of space, says Abintra, which is headquartered in London with offices in Boston, US, and advises corporations worldwide.

However, the company doesn’t expect the findings to stimulate a rush to smaller premises. Tony Booty, a director, explains: “Of course, it’s possible to take the data and decide to downsize and save money, but most businesses choose to use their newly-discovered space to enhance the workplace, for example by introducing new agile working areas, such as in-house coffee shops and informal meeting spaces. These have proven benefits for productivity as well as recruitment and retention, so being able to accommodate them without having to take on extra space is a huge advantage.”

Clearly, information about the amount of space a business actually needs in a given location is critical for planning future real estate decisions. It can also be deployed by risk managers to ensure sufficient space is available to keep mission critical operations running if there is a disaster within a building or at another nearby company location.

The report, free and accessible for everyone, reveals that large office-based firms with 250 or more employees in England and Wales are together spending £10,158 million on unnecessary total occupancy costs – that’s rent, rate and associated costs of running a workspace and related office functions.

What’s more, the issue is probably on an even bigger scale than the report’s conclusions, since its calculations are based on modest estimates of the amount of space saving possible and the number of people who work in offices.

Hernaldo Turrillo

Hernaldo Turrillo is a writer and author specialised in innovation, AI, DLT, SMEs, trading, investing and new trends in technology and business. He has been working for ztudium group since 2017. He is the editor of openbusinesscouncil.org, tradersdna.com, hedgethink.com, and writes regularly for intelligenthq.com, socialmediacouncil.eu. Hernaldo was born in Spain and finally settled in London, United Kingdom, after a few years of personal growth. Hernaldo finished his Journalism bachelor degree in the University of Seville, Spain, and began working as reporter in the newspaper, Europa Sur, writing about Politics and Society. He also worked as community manager and marketing advisor in Los Barrios, Spain. Innovation, technology, politics and economy are his main interests, with special focus on new trends and ethical projects. He enjoys finding himself getting lost in words, explaining what he understands from the world and helping others. Besides a journalist, he is also a thinker and proactive in digital transformation strategies. Knowledge and ideas have no limits.

The post Businesses Blow Billions on Wasted Office Space, New Study Reveals appeared first on OpenBusinessCouncil Directory.

A majority of European and Middle East cybersecurity professionals at organisations using DevOps practices in the public cloud believe that their organisations are trading speed for security. In a newly published cloud security study commissioned by global security leader, Palo Alto Networks® (NYSE: PANW), 72 percent of cybersecurity professionals indicated that the speed of public cloud adoption is introducing preventable security risks to software updates.

The DevOps model increases collaboration between development and operations teams, allowing for a fast-paced approach to application creation and enhancement. Organisations have adopted this model to achieve faster application delivery, enhanced innovation, more stable operating environments, and performance-focused employee teams. Yet as the DevOps model is enthusiastically embraced, the survey findings indicate that cybersecurity is being overlooked and organisations may be vulnerable as a result.  Most notably:

• There is concern among cybersecurity professionals about whether cybersecurity can match the speed and frequency of how DevOps updates apps and services in the public cloud. Only 47 percent of survey respondents indicated that they are confident that cybersecurity is working well for DevOps teams operating in the public cloud.
• Only 22 percent of cybersecurity professionals said they had a firm grasp on the risks and needs that come with securing DevOps-operated environments in the cloud
• Nearly three quarters (73 percent) report that their organisations have either fully or partly adopted DevOps development in the public cloud.  They are regularly deploying and changing software, with 1 in 5 doing many updates on a weekly basis.

As Greg Day, vice president and CSO for EMEA at Palo Alto Networks, explains: “DevOps is proven to deliver strong results. Rapid delivery of code, infrastructure and data enables organisations to meet the needs of their customers faster than ever and stay ahead of their competition. However, too often, the speed and complexity of delivery has resulted in traditional cybersecurity processes failing to complete even rudimentary checks and controls at the same rapid pace, resulting in unnecessary risks. Indeed, we see over half failing to meet basic password management policies. Organisations won’t wait for security teams to catch up, so they must leverage native integration points and automate their cybersecurity capabilities to address the continuous and real-time visibility and governance needed to keep pace with DevOps practices.”

The Palo Alto Networks Security Operating Platform enables organisations to confidently deploy applications in the cloud by preventing data loss and business disruption. Palo Alto Networks customers operating in hybrid and multi-cloud environments benefit from a comprehensive and consistent security offering that integrates directly with cloud platforms.

Hernaldo Turrillo

Hernaldo Turrillo is a writer and author specialised in innovation, AI, DLT, SMEs, trading, investing and new trends in technology and business. He has been working for ztudium group since 2017. He is the editor of openbusinesscouncil.org, tradersdna.com, hedgethink.com, and writes regularly for intelligenthq.com, socialmediacouncil.eu. Hernaldo was born in Spain and finally settled in London, United Kingdom, after a few years of personal growth. Hernaldo finished his Journalism bachelor degree in the University of Seville, Spain, and began working as reporter in the newspaper, Europa Sur, writing about Politics and Society. He also worked as community manager and marketing advisor in Los Barrios, Spain. Innovation, technology, politics and economy are his main interests, with special focus on new trends and ethical projects. He enjoys finding himself getting lost in words, explaining what he understands from the world and helping others. Besides a journalist, he is also a thinker and proactive in digital transformation strategies. Knowledge and ideas have no limits.

The post ‘Organisations Trade Speed For Security When Using Public Cloud’, Warns a New Study appeared first on OpenBusinessCouncil Directory.

With the Census Bureau reporting that the South held 8 of the 15 cities with the largest population gains in 2017, the personal-finance website WalletHub today released its report on 2018’s Fastest-Growing Cities in America as well as accompanying videos.

To determine where the most rapid local economic growth occurred over a period of seven years, WalletHub compared 515 U.S. cities across 15 key metrics. The data set ranges from population growth to college-educated population growth to unemployment rate decrease. In addition, we produced a separate ranking by city size.

Some cities thrive even through hard economic times while others struggle. WalletHub said that they have used “data set ranges from population growth to unemployment rate decrease to growth in regional GDP per capita.”  Additionally, the full report takes on data from household income or even the poverty rate and compare them with hundred of cities all across the US.

Here you can see some of the key notes of the report:

• Frisco, Texas, experienced the highest population growth, at 6.52 percent. Conversely, Albany, Georgia experienced the highest population decrease, at 1.51 percent.

• San Marcos, California, experienced the highest household income increase, at 9.95 percent. Conversely, Shreveport, Louisiana, experienced the highest household income decrease, at 1.43 percent.

• Frisco, Texas, experienced the highest job growth, at 6.12 percent. Conversely, Peoria, Illinois, experienced the highest jobs decrease, at 1.27 percent.

• Lake Charles, Louisiana, experienced the highest decrease in poverty rate, at 2.32 percent. Conversely, Wilmington, Delaware, experienced the highest increase in poverty rate, at 1.28 percent.

• Milpitas, Santa Clara, Sunnyvale, San Jose and Mountain View, California, experienced the highest growth in real GDP per capita, at 5.68 percent. Conversely, Lafayette, Louisiana, experienced the highest decrease in real GDP per capita, at 4.87 percent.

In order to determine the most rapidly growing local economies, WalletHub compared 515 cities of varying population sizes based on two key dimensions, “Sociodemographics” and “Jobs & Economy.”

“We evaluated those dimensions using 15 relevant metrics, which are listed below with their corresponding weights. Each metric was graded on a 100-point scale, with a score of 100 representing the fastest economic growth. For each metric, we analyzed data spanning from 2011 to 2017 with the exception of “Increase in Number of Startups” (from 2010 to 2014), “Increase in Number of Businesses” (from 2011 to 2016) and “Increase in Venture Capital Investment Amount (from 2010 to 2016)”, they stated when asked about their methodology. “Finally, we determined each city’s weighted average across all metrics to calculate its overall score and used the resulting scores to rank-order our sample.”

Hernaldo Turrillo

Hernaldo Turrillo is a writer and author specialised in innovation, AI, DLT, SMEs, trading, investing and new trends in technology and business. He has been working for ztudium group since 2017. He is the editor of openbusinesscouncil.org, tradersdna.com, hedgethink.com, and writes regularly for intelligenthq.com, socialmediacouncil.eu. Hernaldo was born in Spain and finally settled in London, United Kingdom, after a few years of personal growth. Hernaldo finished his Journalism bachelor degree in the University of Seville, Spain, and began working as reporter in the newspaper, Europa Sur, writing about Politics and Society. He also worked as community manager and marketing advisor in Los Barrios, Spain. Innovation, technology, politics and economy are his main interests, with special focus on new trends and ethical projects. He enjoys finding himself getting lost in words, explaining what he understands from the world and helping others. Besides a journalist, he is also a thinker and proactive in digital transformation strategies. Knowledge and ideas have no limits.

The post These Are The 2018’s Fastest-Growing Cities in America appeared first on OpenBusinessCouncil Directory.